


Howling around your kitchen door

by sloganeer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloganeer/pseuds/sloganeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, dinner. We can do dinner.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling around your kitchen door

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I stole the title from Werewolves of London.

His dad is out of milk, bread, eggs, coffee, and any recognisable form of fresh fruit or vegetable, but Stiles makes the trip to the grocery store at 6 on a Friday night because there's also no meat he can throw on the barbecue for dinner. So he picks up some steaks, a carton each of 2% (for his dad) and skim (for himself), one of those big sourdough boules his dad likes toasted in the morning, a dozen eggs, the darkest coffee from the new local roastery, his favourite green tea which he finished off last weekend, and some cherries, because they're on special and they're in season.

The check-out lines are backed up into the aisles. It's Friday, it makes sense, and Stiles ends up here most weeks. He's getting used to showing up at the house to find what new horror his dad has been living off the past week. They have a standing dinner date, but Stiles is thinking he should make the trip back to Beacon Hills more often. Freshman year, his dad seemed to do OK. But then Stiles decided to take a job on campus for the summer, it’s sophomore year, and they’re both discovering how permanent this move could be.

Stiles chooses a middle line, changes his mind when he spots a trainee button, then gets stuck behind three high school boys buying popcorn, Kraft Singles, and condoms. He's tired after a full week of classes, so he settles in for the wait. At least they were smart enough to remember the condoms. 

He gets sucked into a conversation beside him: a guy reading People off the rack and his girlfriend making fun of him. "You’re worse than my mother," she says, and they laugh, but they both coo over a photo spread of David Beckham and his kids.

Stiles looks, too, which is how Derek Hale is able to sneak up on him. A year ago, Stiles would have known if they were in the same room. A year ago, Derek would never have been very far.

Derek doesn't say hi, hello, how're you doin'? He says, "Stiles," not a question, not a fact, not a hint of surprise.

Stiles turns and trips over his grocery basket at his feet. He says, "Hi. Hello. How're you doin'?"

Derek's face doesn't change, but he puts a hand out. It lands on Stiles's shoulder and steadies him, even though he wasn't going to fall. He doesn't fall that easily, not anymore.

Stiles says, "You look good," because isn't that what you're supposed to say? He's seen it in films and on TV. He doesn't have a lot of experience with running into old friends you used to have sex dreams about. Ex-boyfriends are easier, he’s discovered.

"How's your dad?" Derek asks. He seems nervous, too, but Stiles could never tell.

He nods, happy to get the conversation moving. "Good, yeah. He’s good. You'd probably know that better than me, though, right?" He laughs, then cuts himself off, but Derek already knows he's a spaz. Stiles is sure Derek can smell it on him.

"Life is easier when I avoid law enforcement."

"Of course," Stiles says. He can't stop his head nodding. "Of course." 

The high school boys have moved forward, and the couple in the next line have decided to buy the People. Stiles is that much closer to getting out of here. He picks up his basket and sets it on the conveyer belt. Derek steps closer. Stiles sees his hand in the corner of his eye, and for a second, he doesn't know what's happening.

Derek helps him unload his groceries, keeping the milk cartons together, putting the cherries on top where they can't get crushed, and when Stiles looks away to put the basket underneath, he spots Derek sniffing the tea.

"You used to drink this a lot," Derek says, setting the box next to the coffee on the conveyer belt. He stands up straight and doesn't look embarrassed at all. Stiles always hated that about him.

"I still do. I drink so much of it, I had to buy more."

The cashier interrupts them with a cheery, "Hi there," and Stiles turns away from Derek to say hello. He helps her pack his groceries into the mismatched reusable bags he keeps in his Jeep, and he pays with his dad’s credit card. 

"Have a good night," she says. 

Stiles says, "You, too," but she's moved on, pulling Derek's single jug of milk across the scanner and ringing him up before Stiles can decide if he's going to wait or not. He waits while Derek refuses the bag and waits while Derek gets his change. It's not a plan, but they walk out of the store together, Derek carrying his milk and both of Stiles's bags.

Stiles walks a step behind Derek. He needs the space to figure this out. A year later, and he doesn't know where they’re going. He probably never did.

Derek knows, though. He's walking straight to Stiles's Jeep, a new Jeep, after the one he had in high school finally died on the road between college and home, Spring Break, freshman year. But Derek walks straight to it. Stiles skips ahead to unlock the side door. 

"Thanks," he says.

Derek puts the groceries in the back, on the floor, where they won't slide around and off the seat. He steps back and tries to find the least awkward way to stand with a jug of milk.

"I should get home." Stiles rubs a hand over his head. He feels itchy all over. "My dad will be waiting. Dinner doesn't cook itself."

Derek nods. He doesn't move. He doesn't even look away. Stiles has to do it for them. He fiddles with his car keys and waits for Derek to leave. 

He doesn't move.

It’s been months since Stiles last saw Derek, when they waved across the street and were on their way. It’s been longer still since they spoke. Stiles hasn’t had much to say since he told Derek how he felt and Derek told him he was wrong.

He’s spent the last year and a half away at college trying to prove Derek right. He wants to tell Derek he’s still single. But the way Derek is staring him down, Stiles thinks he already knows.

“My dad will be waiting,” he says again, but it doesn’t do them any good. Derek holds his eyes, and Stiles can’t look away. He’s not sure what it means, but he knows how it feels. It feels like Derek always has, like this is where Stiles is supposed to be. He hates it. 

He wants it. 

Stiles can’t stand the silence. He never could. His dad says he carried on long, rambling conversations with the stuffed animals in his crib. Standing in a grocery store parking lot with Derek so close, Stiles doesn’t see another out. 

“You’re not cooking those steaks yourself, are you?” Derek's voice can still surprise him. Derek can still surprise him.

Stiles laughs. “You want the job?”

Derek shrugs. He passes the milk over to his other hand.

“All right, but that means you also have to keep my dad away from the barbecue." They walk around the Jeep to the driver's side. 

“I can do that,” Derek says. He leans his free arm across the open door, waiting for Stiles to get in.

"You still like German potato salad?"

Derek nods. 

“So, dinner. We can do dinner.” Stiles gives an awkward little wave, then Derek closes his car door, and they’re both saved from any further embarrassment.

He hefts his jug of milk and walks across the parking lot to his car. Stiles waits, watches. Derek is driving a beat up truck now, red. He gets in, and Stiles leads the way home.

He had his iPhone hooked up for music on the ride to the store; Stiles leave it in his pocket on the way home. He can't afford the distraction if he's going to figure out what the hell just happened. He thinks about calling ahead to warn his dad. He thinks about calling Scott. They talk once a month or so, Allison on the extension. Once a month or so, Scott offers an update on Derek and the pack, and once a month or so, Stiles says no thank you.

Once he’s in the driveway, Stiles barely has a chance to get out of the Jeep before Derek is there, reaching into the back and carrying the groceries up to the house. His dad must have been watching at the window because he’s there to open the door.

“Hey, kids. What’s for dinner?”

“Steaks on the grill and awkward conversation,” Stiles says. He sends a quick smile over his shoulder. Derek doesn’t return it, but he looks happy all the same. Stiles is surprised to discover he still knows the difference.

Dad reaches out to help, but Derek won’t give up his bags. He pushes past and into the kitchen. Stiles holds up his hands and follows.

“I’ll light the barbecue?” his dad offers.

“Sit down,” Stiles tells him. He hangs out the doorway. “We’ve got it,” he says, turning back into the kitchen with a twist, a fall, and a hand on the wall to catch himself before it gets embarrassing. More embarrassing than bringing tall, dark men back to have dinner with his dad.

“Stiles,” his dad says, in that dad voice.

“Um, yes.”

“You’ve got it?” he asks. 

Stiles looks behind him, at Derek with his head in the fridge, his jacket hanging off a cupboard door.

“I’ve got it,” he says.

Derek has put most of the food away already. He’s left the steaks on the counter. He’s pushed his black sweater up to his elbows, and he’s drying his hands with a dishtowel. 

He looks up when Stiles stumbles into the kitchen. 

“What can I do?”

In the pantry, Stiles finds the big bag of potatoes. He picks out a dozen that haven't started growing, and Derek catches each one as he throws them over the kitchen island. Derek scrubs them up, Stiles chops them up, and his dad wanders through for a beer when Stiles is filling a pot of water. 

"You're making potato salad?" his dad asks, sticking his nose down into the pot.

"Not if you keep getting in my way."

His dad holds up his hands and his beer in surrender. "I'll leave you boys alone."

Stiles digs in the cupboard beside the stove. He was sure there was a jar of capers in there. "Can you look in the fridge?" he asks Derek. "In the back. See any dill pickles?"

"Bread and butter?"

"That'll do." He pulls out pan and puts it on the heat. "How much bacon is left?”

Stiles finds Derek a cutting board, and Derek picks the biggest knife out of the block. They get the potatoes on to boil first, then the bacon on the heat. It’s nice. It’s less awkward than Stiles imagined it would be. From the living room, he hears the baseball game and his dad yelling at the umpires. It’s exactly this Stiles misses when he’s gone.

It’s not just his dad Stiles misses. It’s the well-worn streets which lead to Beacon Hills, the favourite diner down the street, the house he grew up in, and the people he grew up with. Not quite the Derek he grew up with, but that Derek was afraid and alone and terse. This Derek, in the Stilinski kitchen, almost seems happy.

Stiles should say something. On cooking shows, the chefs talk to the camera, narrate what they're doing and how much flour goes into the bowl. The German potato salad was his mother's recipe and is still his father's favourite. Stiles makes it so often, he throws stuff in the bowl without thinking.

He says, “More,” and Derek chops the herbs smaller. He says, “Salt,” and Derek passes it over the counter.

“What else can I make you do?” Stiles wonders, enjoying the rare smile on Derek’s face.

He seems to genuinely think it over. “I know how to open a beer.”

Stiles laughs. “Yes, go ahead. My dad won’t mind.”

The potatoes boil up and over, spitting water on the stove and demanding attention. Derek sneaks out back while Stiles isn't looking. He took the steaks with him and left an open beer for Stiles on the counter. They really should have more vegetables with dinner, but there are cherries for dessert.

Stiles peeks in on his dad--head back on the couch and asleep--grabs the salt and pepper Derek forgot, then joins him on the back deck. He takes a big breath, puts on a big smile, and opens the door.

"How's it going?"

In the light, Derek's eyes flash red when he turns to look at Stiles. "The steaks?"

"Yes, Derek. I'm asking about dinner. What did you--" But of course Stiles knows what he thought. Maybe he should be happy Derek finally got to the point where he needs to talk shit out. Stiles was here years ago.

"Is that pepper?" Derek reaches out to grab the mill out of Stiles's hand. "Do they need pepper?”

"Stop, stop," he says, his hand covering Derek's on the lid. It makes them both freeze, and it's not the chill from the night. "So let's talk," Stiles says.

"Now you want to talk?"

Stiles takes the fork, the pepper mill, the beer out of Derek’s hands. He puts everything aside. "I wanted to talk years ago."

"Hey.” Derek steps close. Stiles steps back. "It wasn't that long ago. And you're the one who left."

"I went to school. And, and, you told me to leave."

"I did not.” Derek keeps his hands at his side. Stiles can’t see the claws yet, but he wonders. “Don't put words in my mouth."

"There were no words. There were never any words."

“I--” His nose goes up like he smells something. Every muscles in Derek's body goes stiff. Stiles recognizes this. He remembers what those nights were like, in the woods, chasing after God-knows-what and hoping his legs were faster.

Stiles looks around the backyard, but then he smells it, too, and he isn't a werewolf.

"The steaks, Derek."

They both reach for the lid and flip it up. No smoke, just three steaks a little crispy around the edges. His dad likes it that way. He likes his bacon burnt and his burgers dry.

Derek turns the gas off. He reaches behind Stiles for the pepper mill and grinds it over the steaks right there on the grill. Ducking back into the kitchen, Stiles grabs a plate to get the steaks off the heat.

“The meat needs to rest. We have some time,” he says. Stiles holds the plate while Derek moves them off the barbecue.

“They look OK?” Derek tries to poke the meat with his fork, but Stiles won’t let him. He spins out of his way, and they go back inside.

"Your dad--"

"Really?” Stiles says. “Now? Why are we talking about my dad now?"

"He can’t like this.”

"He likes you. He likes everyone."

He’s asleep in the living room with the baseball game turned up. Stiles puts the potato salad from the fridge on the counter next to the steaks. When he turns around to find plates and cutlery, Derek is right there. He’s always right there. It took a year apart to miss that, but now it seems like no time has passed at all.

Stiles crosses his arms across his chest. It’s hard to keep his hands to himself right now. Derek isn’t wearing his leather jacket anymore. His sweater is tight around his arms and broad across his chest. He took off his boots at the front door. Stiles is only noticing now that Derek is in his sock feet.

"You didn't tell your dad."

“How you broke my heart?” 

“I didn’t--”

“You did.”

“--mean to.”

It’s frustrating. It’s been months and months of this, of avoiding Derek, of hating Derek, of sleeping with pretty girls and older boys to prove Derek right, and all of it has only led Stiles back here. They were here a year ago, before graduation, at the backyard party his dad threw for Stiles and his friends. 

They weren’t in the kitchen that time. Stiles had watched Derek duck inside, away from the crowd, and he caught him at the door before Derek was gone.

That was his moment. After the werewolves and kanimas and hunters and magic, telling Derek that he might be in love with him was Stiles’s bravest moment. 

"If you had just told me what was in your head, Derek. If you had told me how you felt, instead of pushing me away." He stops talking and tries to stop himself from flailing. Derek does it for him, and they stand there in the kitchen, holding hands. "Are you telling me now?" Stiles asks.

“I’m telling you I’m sorry.” Derek looks up and straight into Stiles when he says that.

Stiles shakes his head. “This isn’t fair.”

“What else can I say? What else do you want?”

Derek’s hands are on his hips now. He’s pulling Stiles away from the counter. He’s pulling him in close. Stiles couldn’t get away even if he wanted to. 

He doesn’t want to.

“I want to kiss you,” Stiles says. “Am I going to regret that?”

They both look at the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Stiles can hear his dad grumbling at the TV. There are a few minutes before he’ll come looking for food.

“We’re not going to regret this,” Derek says, but Stiles doesn’t know how he can be so sure. 

Back then, they didn’t kiss. Stiles never got the chance. Derek shut that down, along with any ideas Stiles had about where this could go. But he’s here now, offering up exactly what Stiles was asking for then.

Stiles isn’t going to regret this.

Their lips come together and apart, and Derek presses his tongue into Stiles’s mouth, and it’s warm and wet and so so nice. It’s a first kiss, but they’ll get better. They’ll figure out how they fit. Next time, they won’t do this in the kitchen with his dad in the other room.

“We have to--” Stiles tries to say. Derek doesn’t let him. “C’mon. We have to stop.”

When Derek does pull away, Stiles grins a little at his glassy eyes. “Dinner?” Derek says, and his voice is wavy, too.

“My dad’ll be looking soon.” Stiles presses his lips against Derek’s before they let go completely. Derek steps back and lets Stiles away from the counter. “You know I don’t want to stop, right?”

Derek nods. He squares his shoulders and rubs his hands on his jeans. He looks like he’s preparing himself for the Sheriff. 

“Hey, Dad, dinner!” Stiles finally finds the plates and cutlery. Derek steals a fork and the first bite. They eat crowded around the breakfast bar, and Stiles is nervous, but his dad laughs, and Derek talks, and they both tells Stiles how much they like the potato salad. He’s nervous, but life makes Stiles nervous. He can deal with dinner.

His dad goes back for seconds. “How about we have steak every Friday?” he says, and Stiles can’t be sure, but he thinks he sees a wink in Derek’s direction.

“How about you eat the fruit I put in the fridge this week?”

“I can take care of myself, kid.” He sets his plate down and shakes too much salt over everything. Stiles takes the salt away.

“That’s what they all say.”

When they’re finished, Derek helps to fill the dishwasher, and Stiles puts the kettle on for tea. His dad stands in the doorway with another beer, keeping on eye on Stiles and the baseball game at the same time. Derek behaves, hands to himself. Stiles can’t help himself and bumps their hips when he passes behind to pull the teapot down off its shelf.

“I should go,” Derek says, drying his hands. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You don’t want tea?” Stiles holds up the box Derek was sniffing at the grocery store. He was hoping Derek would hang around a little longer. Until his dad went to bed, at least.

Instead, Derek shrugs his jacket on, rolling his shoulders into the worn leather. He throws a look at Stiles’s dad, checking where his attention is at that moment. It’s not on them, so Derek leans in.

“You know I don’t want to go, right?”

Stiles knows.

His dad is right there behind him, his hand out for Derek to shake. It all feels so normal. Derek says thank you again, formal and calm, except that Stiles knows he isn’t. 

“OK, OK,” he says, breaking up the party before his dad can offer Derek his barbecue tips. “Go to bed, Dad. I’m making pancakes in the morning.”

“Good night, boys.”

Derek even waves, before Stiles can push him out the door, still in his socks. “Where are my--” Derek slips back inside and when he joins Stiles on the porch, he’s put back together into the Derek Stiles remembers from before.

Then he smiles. When Derek smiles, his teeth look sharper than the wolf’s. The moon must be close. Stiles doesn’t keep track of the cycles like he used to. Maybe there’s an app for that.

But when Derek smiles, he looks happy. Stiles hasn’t seen that look in a long time. He leans up into another kiss because Stiles knows, he made that look.

“You look happy,” Derek tells him, and Stiles has to laugh.

“I didn’t look happy in line at the grocery store?”

“You did.” With an arm wrapped tight around Stiles’s shoulders, Derek walks them to his truck. “You did, and I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what you would say, but I had to say something. I had to say I was sorry about before,” and he makes it a real hug, a good hug. Stiles rubs his cheek over the leather of Derek’s jacket.

“We figured this out,” Stiles says. 

They kiss against the beat up truck. Stiles isn’t too grown-up to admit, he fantasized about this when he was sixteen. It was cooler when Derek had the Camaro, but he still has the leather jacket. He’s still Derek, and that was all Stiles wanted, then and right now.


End file.
